Discrimination is almost a curse word in today’s world. No one wants to have anything to do with it. The real reason you don’t want discrimination is not that it makes you bad but that it makes you separate and judgmental. Discrimination comes from a “them-and-us concept” with the “us” being the better group to be part of, of course.

Discernment on the other hand is a blessed and neutral state of seeing behind the masks we apply with such care. It gives you the capacity to see what is and the grace to choose how to respond to that knowingness.

It is easy to say choose. Just choose one, for they exclude each other. When we discriminate, whether by race, color, size, sexual orientation, hair style, etc., you don’t allow yourself the chance to get to know the hidden jewels of that person. You have already rejected them; eliminated them from your world. You have lost access to their gifts. Everyone and everything can be our teacher if we allow it to be so.

Take a quick look into your internal closet and see what you discriminate against. What is it you don’t want to be part of? What is too bad or ugly or scary for you to be part of? Now turn and embrace it. Give it a big hug and see what it can teach you. As long as we discriminate and separate, we are giving that which we discriminate against power over us. To empower, you turn and embrace.

Discernment means you have the power to know and act from your state of knowingness; that you are empowered and have a vast capacity to act from a place of kindness and compassion, knowing you are a part of whatever you are discerning. I encourage you to embrace discernment. The tools needed are your breath, your hope, your intuition, your open heart.

Breathe into a situation and ask to see it with different eyes; new eyes.

When you are feeling jaded, you lose both your intuition and your capacity to see deeply into another, so do this to connect to your intuition. Take your fingertips and act like you are dusting off your third eye in upward movements. Another super easy way to activate intuition is to open your eyes super wide so you can take the entire universe in. Keep them wide open for 2-3 minutes.

Heart. It gets closed by fear by moving through life as if chased, (fear variation; just more visual), always needing to be in control. Heart gets opened by slowing your rhythm down, smiling, taking your hands, making fists and rotating them very quickly in front of your heart in an outward motion to release all that is closing it.

Take these tools and use them as your tool kit to live discernment and enjoy the gifts that flood into your life.